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Living in rural Montana is a lot like being duct-taped inside a refrigerator box with a bear. It's dangerous. However, there are some steps you can take to ensure your survival. In rural Montana, I mean. Not the one with the bear in the box. That's probably going to be fatal no matter what.

1. Learn to tell the difference between dangerous mountain-people and not-as-dangerous mountain-people

Your environment will be a minefield of crazed-looking individuals who reek of beer-sweat and failure. Some of them will be dangerous and some will merely be your fellow Safeway patrons.

2. Already have all of the furniture you will ever need

The people of rural Montana do not seem to grasp the concept of depreciation. Your local Craigslist and newspaper classifieds will be overrun with ads for five-hundred-dollar "vintage" mattresses and three-hundred-dollar "handcrafted plywood end tables." Exclamation points will be used in unnecessary amounts.

The bottom line is that you will not be able to afford/find furniture. Unless you somehow have an extensive gun collection that you are willing to barter. Guns are used as a sort of primitive currency here.

3. Beware of garage sales. They might actually be traps.

Once you realize that Craigslist is useless in your area, you might be tempted to turn to yard sales and garage sales. This could prove to be a bad idea and may end with you being enrolled in a baptist fellowship against your will.

You will start your day with high hopes. Maybe you want a futon or a lamp. Maybe a new table. Your search will eventually lead you out of town a little ways. There, you'll see a large sign nailed with purpose to a telephone pole. It will say "Garage Sale!!!"

It is not a garage sale. It is a trap.

Once you have ventured inside the garage to peruse the shiny, tastefully-arranged merchandise, you will be approached by an adorable old woman named Rose. She'll say "There's more stuff inside. Come on in!" You will feel disarmed by the fact that she appears to be a harmless old lady with no agenda. You will enter her house and begin looking through the items for sale. She will come up behind you and say "So what do you do for work, Sweetheart?" You will feel tempted to tell her that you don't have a job yet. DO NOT DO THIS. If you do, she will ask for your phone number and you will give it to her because "she has a friend who might need a babysitter" and you are desperate for money. Immediately after carefully inserting your contact information into her rolodex, she will nonchalantly ask "So... have you enrolled in a fellowship yet?" You will not know what a fellowship is. It won't matter. Your soul has just been sneak-saved!

(Note: Rose's "garage sale" is a year-round event. Even in the depth of winter, she's there bravely sneak-saving her victims.)

4. Don't just be a defensive driver. Become pure reflexes and agility.

If you feel the need to leave the safety of your home and get into an automobile and drive to Super One, be prepared. It's going to be like playing Grand Theft Auto on chaos mode. And it is going to infuriate you because no one will even notice that they almost killed you. They'll pull out of K-Mart without even looking. If you honk at them, they'll be all surprised and look at you like "what the fuck are you doing in my road?" They think they are great drivers. This is because they spend most of their time driving in places where they can miss the road by ten feet and not even notice.

Allow me to illustrate with a diagram:

5. Hone your dog-monster fighting skills

You will be attacked by a dog-monster at some point. These beasts resemble the average dog except they are vicious killing-machines that are not restrained in any way.

Your best bet for survival is probably to find a rock that is blunt on one end for bludgeoning and sharp on the other for stabbing. You will need to do both and it is useful to have one hand free to sacrifice as a distraction, so having both a stabbing and bludgeoning surface on the same rock is essential.

If the thought of beating/stabbing a monster that slightly resembles a dog made you feel any emotion other than battle-rage, you will not survive.

I have never wanted to visit a place more in my entire life. How you haven't been scooped up by the Montana tourism board is beyond me. Seriously, add an exclamation point to any of those things and you've got yourself some kick-ass copy.

Jay - I'll contact the tourism board and tell them that I have a masterfully-crafted "intrigue-piece" on Montana. If they don't know how to read, maybe I'll be able to sneak it by them based on the pictures that can be interpreted as: 1. friendly locals! 2. Comfy! 3. Real estate! 4. Complicated/awesome graph-type thing! 5. Dogs are welcome! Even offleash! Even off medication! 6. We have our own Running of the Bulls ever day! 7. Petting zoo!

Wo. It's just like Frankston, except they trade in ciggies and beer. And fifty-cent loans so they can make a phone call/buy a train ticket/ score some meth. Note: Our derros are scarier than the bears.

I live in the city, and unfortunately, my soul still gets sneak-saved all the time and bad drivers still act all mad when I am in their road -- I am almost killed by drivers at least 6 times during my daily commute. But I don't have to hone my cow-fighting skills. But YOU get to look at lovely scenery in rural Montana. I look at slush, buildings, and ugly people. So many trade-offs ...

I used to live in downtown Portland, and I thought that place was scary with all the meth heads and diseased women...but rural Montana sounds like a beast! Bears in refrigerator boxes?! YIKES! Mountain men?! They really are both extremely intimidating and scary. And don't get me started on old ladies that seem sweet...they're just crazy bastards.

Sounds totally like Alabama, except we don't have bears, we have coyotes (pronounced "ky-otes").

We have meth-heads (even a "meth mountain" so big it was covered on "Intervention" on A&E) and def. bad drivers and all sorts of "sneak saves" except they knock on your door and sneak save you on your own turf.

You forgot something for number 1. The mountain-men may be missing fingers. This does not mean that they are the dangerous mountain men. Mountain men lose fingers all the time. I think it is a sport. Or logging.

Brilliant as usual. I'm enjoying my Shark Bear sweatshirt but now I'm craving a Bear/Refrigerator box one. Perhaps that would be too disturbing for me at a primal level (my greatest joy as a child was getting a hold of these boxes to play in and somehow those memories have changed - I realize I was playing Russian roulette and didn't even know it).

Driving in rural Montana sounds a lot like driving in the western suburbs of Sydney.

Oh and you're hilarious, btw. You made me laugh out loud on the train, and now all the cute boys on the Inner West line think I'm a crazy person. That's not going to help when I try and follow them home.

You and my iPhone are equal parts to blame for me never getting a date again.

I live in a village in England (the country) and thought this just pandered to every poor, white American, "redneck" stereotype going. Thank you. Before I thought I was prejudiced, now I know I'm right...

I grew up in Northern Alberta, Canada. Which is north of Montana. The town I was in being 15 hours north of the Montana border. Not only were there hillbillies... but there are hillbillies who can't leave their houses for 8 months of the year due to cold. I was RAISED by these people.

Shockingly, living in rural Montana is a lot like being in rural Georgia and North Caroline without the refrigerator box. More like a heat lamp. Being duct taped to a heat lamp with a bear chained around the stem. And don't get me started about the mountain people. Have you ever seen Deliverance? It was based on real people out here.

Those same crazed drivers are also in Connecticut! They even give you the same, "What the fuck are you doing? I'M the best driver in the world" look as they try to kill you. One day, I am going to buy a monster truck and I'm going to run them over while looking at them with the same look: "What? I'm just driving!"

How did that sweet little Hannah girl (you know the one that does all the singing) survive all that wilderness out there. I would have totally laid money on that cow/bull/zombie/kirstie alley monster thing.

Egad. I'm familiar with the "sneak-save", but in the form of what looks like an innocent birthday greeting from my step-grandmother yet contains religious pamphlets. I can tell what infractions she thinks I'm guilty of each year based on the subject matter.

Whoa that sounds like rural Alaska....Only there's more bears(I've been chased by one), more crazy mountain men that don't leave their house unless they need more meth/rolaids (been chased by one of those too.)

This could also work for my hometown in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, except that instead of insane bears, we have insane deer. Yep, I said it. I didn't stutter. Those bitches will come at you with razor sharp hooves and teeth of steel and eat your eyeballs right out of your head if you look at them wrong.

ima go out on a limb here and say that Rural monstana may be a little like rural Australia (my home) except no bear fighting skills, however, you need kangaroo fighting skills. oh, and out here in dueling banjo's country there isn't much traffic (you could play chicken on main street no worries) so i think that we're the traffic hazard when we travel to other places. the character description was very accurate!

Growing up in Rural Montana was awesome! You left out the other awesome parts like being towed behind a truck on your sled! And coyotes! And shooting said coyotes because they'll eat deer, the deer you're gonna shoot!But, seriously, 2-lane highways can go screw themselves. I hated driving and then WOAH A CAR WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?!

I guess rural vermont is also like Montana. I've been attacked by a dog-monster, and i'm not even 15 yet. I've also been lured into a refridgerator box. There was a bear in there. I hauled ass out of there.